Dickinson’s I Dwell in Possibility is one great example of how the poet transforms finite to infinite through the imaginative world of poetry. Through the use of metaphors, Dickinson has shown how domestic images such as house, chambers, roof, doors and windows can be extended to infinite imaginations in the poetic world. The “fairer House” (line 2) serves as a metaphor for poetry and the “Visitors” (line 9) who are the fairest may be a metaphor for the readers of poetry. The first four lines compare poem and prose by saying poem is more “superior” (line 4) as it has more “windows” and “doors”—suggesting that poems are subject to more flexible interpretations. The second stanza talks of how this fairer house can be extended to nature such as “Cedars” (line 5) and “the Sky” (line 8). The final stanza reveals writing poems as the speaker’s “Occupation” (line 10). She opens the world of poetry by the “widening” of her “narrow hands”, which serves as a metaphor for the act of writing. “Wide” and “narrow” form a pair of contrast while the repetition of fairness (fairer and fairest are used in the first and last stanza respectively) reiterates that poem is fairer than prose. Dickinson has portrayed the infinite possibilities of poetry through the use of domestic imagery: from the roof of the house to the infinite sky and from the finite hands to the “Paradise” of poetry. This echoes what Wordsworth claims,

Poets choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as possible in a selection of language really used by imagination, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain coloring aspect; whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect.

The loose syntax of the poem and the frequent use of dashes have added to the overall flexibility and the many ‘possibilities’ the poem has:

I dwell in Possibility–
A fairer House than Prose–
More numerous of Windows–
Superior–for Doors–...

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...Literary Analysis of the poetry of EmilyDickinsonEmilyDickinson is one of the most famous authors in American History, and a good amount of that can be attributed to her uniqueness in writing. In Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I could not stop for Death," she characterizes her overarching theme of Death differently than it is usually described through the poetic devices of irony, imagery, symbolism, and word choice.
EmilyDickinson likes to use many different forms of poetic devices and Emily's use of irony in poems is one of the reasons they stand out in American poetry. In her poem "Because I could not stop for Death," she refers to "Death" in a good way. Dickinson states in the poem that "He kindly stopped for me --" (1103, 2). Death is not commonly known as being "kind", which leads us to believe that Dickinson used this line to hint that death was a good thing. In the entire poem, she does not refer to death in a negative way. This shows more irony since death is often feared by many, either regarding themselves or other. This us of irony makes the poem more interesting to the reader.
Imagery is a big component to most works of poetry. Authors strive to achieve a certain image for the reader to paint in their mind. Dickinson tries to paint a picture of "death" in...

...Mike ******
AP Language
30 March 2012
The Maverick: EmilyDickinson
According to psychoanalytic literary criticism, an individual’s personal life, general view of the world, and personal experience, such as past life tragedies and traumas, largely affect the product of his or her self-expression in terms of literature, poetry, and other forms of expression (Brizee and Tompkins). EmilyDickinson, a Massachusetts native, is widely acclaimed for her nonconformist-use of authentic writing styles which include, but are not limited to, poetic style, themes, symbols, motifs, and figurative devices. As a result of her revolutionary poetry which was the complete opposite of the poetry of her time, she went against the grain of established social norms and standards that drew intense criticism and no recognition by fellow poets and by society. However, it is Dickinson’s poetry that forever changed the world’s approach to modern poetry.
EmilyDickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830. Amherst, a mere fifty miles away from Boston, was an influential town centered on education that had its own institution of higher education: Amherst College (Pettinger). Her father, Mr. Dickinson, worked diligently and was rarely home. Mr. Dickinson was a local politician and...

...﻿EMILYDICKINSON, the middle child of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson, was born on December 10, 1830, in the family Homestead on Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts. Just two months earlier, her parents and older brother Austin had moved into the Homestead to live with Edward's parents, Samuel Fowler and Lucretia Gunn Dickinson, and several of Edward's siblings.
Shortly after Emily's younger sister Lavinia was born in 1833, their grandparents moved to Ohio after several years of troubling financial problems in Amherst. The Homestead was sold out of the family, but Emily's family remained in the Homestead as tenants for seven more years.
The crowded house and Edward's growing legal and political career called for new quarters, and when Emily was nine years old, her family purchased a house on what is now North Pleasant Street in Amherst. Close to her older brother Austin and younger sister Lavinia, Dickinson had a fond attachment to the house on Pleasant Street. Domestic duties like baking and gardening occupied her time along with attending school, taking part in church activities, reading books, learning to sing and play the piano, writing letters, and taking walks
Dickinson's formal schooling was exceptional for girls in the early nineteenth century, though not unusual for girls in Amherst. After a short time...

...Jasmine Cannon
Prof. McDade
American Lit II
June 27, 2011
EmilyDickinson: American Poet
I chose to do my essay over EmilyDickinson who is known as the American Poet. Emily’s poems were often recognized by many different poets and also by several readers due to the fact that she was easy to relate to. Also Dickinson wrote poems that created a significant sign of imagery that created a unique lyrically style of writing. Although half of her work was written during the Civil war, there was no influence in her poetry. Emily’s work makes or shows nothing so much as that she had the themes, the insight, the observation, and the capacity for honesty, which If she only known how or only known why these particular areas would have made the major instead of the minor fraction of her genuine poetry. In this essay I am going to be talking about a few of Dickinson poems which are: “There is another sky”, “Because I could not stop for death”, and “Nobody knows this little Rose”. The major themes of these three poems are going to be talking about optimistic, immortality, and honesty of her work.
In the first poem, “There is another sky” by EmilyDickinson is a poem for her brother Austin. She uses nature as means to express the message she has for him; A poem like this is a...

...﻿Explore the context for Emily Dickinson’s poetry and how this context may have influenced its style and content.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet who was born in Amherst, “a quiet academic village in the farming district of Massachusetts, a hundred miles west of Boston” where “she had lived... obscurely all her life”. She was born on December 30, 1830 into a successful, prominent and respected family within the community.
In respect to her character in the early years of her life, Ted Hughes comments that “she was notoriously known for her comic wit and high-spirited originality”, traits that were to progress with incredible force to the point of almost hysteria and what has been suggested as insanity. However, even at such an early age Emily showed little or no indication to travel or to “venture into the world”, which seemed to merely decrease further to nothingness as the years went by.
By the time EmilyDickinson was 24 years old; her sheer disinterest in participating in everyday life was so grand that she is recorded to have said that she would not “go from home, unless emergency leads... [her] by the hand”. So strong was this idea of hers, which eventually led to, what has been considered to be, “self-imprisonment” in her family home in Amherst, where she...

...Analytical Essay on EmilyDickinsonEmilyDickinson was a woman who lived in times that are more traditional; her life experiences influence and help us to understand the dramatic and poetic lines in her writing. Although Dickinson's poetry can often be defined as sad and moody, we can find the use of humor and irony in many of her poems. By looking at the humor and sarcasm found in three of Dickinson's poems, "Success Is Counted Sweetest", "I am Nobody", and "Some keep the Sabbath Going to Church", one can examine each poem show how Dickinson used humor and irony for the dual purposes of comic relief and to stress an idea or conclusion about her life and the environment in the each poem.
EmilyDickinson was born in Amherst Massachusetts; a small farming town that had a college and a hat factory. There, she was raised in a strict Calvinist household while receiving most of her education at a boarding school that followed the American Puritanical tradition. She seldom left her hometown; virtually, her only contact with her friends came to be made through letters. As a young woman, Dickinson rejected comforting traditions, resisted male authority, and wrestled alone with her complex and often contrary emotions. Although she was...

...﻿EMILYDICKINSON AND HER USE OF SYMBOLISM
WITH REFERENCE TO THE POEMS IN COURSE-
1- “A NARROW FELLOW IN THE GRASS”
2- “IN WINTER IN MY ROOM”
3- “I YEARS HAD BEEN FROM HOME”
During the mid nineteenth century, Civil war broke out in America. The war left deep bruises on the life of the nation and the normal life of the people were disrupted at all levels. It was not until 1877 that the nation limped its way to stability and order. The occasional voices of discord and distrust that were heard now and then were engulfed and drowned by the higher voices of writers like Whitman, Lowell and Lanier. During this period there was the wake of unprecedented growth of industrialization and urbanization that led social evils to rise. In such an age of turbulent changes many American intellectuals attempted to express the shifting values and multiple complexities of life. Most of the writers steadily moved from romanticism to realism and from realism to naturalism. It appeared that poetry was almost a dead art, awaiting rebirth in the hands of greater poets. It was against these troubled thoughts and turbulent mind that EmilyDickinson was distilling her Puritan heritage into delightful lyrical hymns.
EmilyDickinson was born on December 10, 1830,...

...EmilyDickinson in her poem #465, covers the subject of death in a way that I
have not seen before. She delves right into the last sounds she heard when the
narrator died, which was a fly buzzing. The last actions of this world are
concluded by the assigning of "keepsakes", the last few tears while
waiting "the King". And now, in the midst of this silence, Emily
chooses to introduce the buzzing of a fly. This common household pest's
incessant buzz becomes all the dying can hear. The fly is a significant part of
the poem and in this essay, I will give examples as to why and how. I think the
fly has special significance in the poem. Beelzebub was often portrayed as a
fly: Lord of the Flies, and there is a strange tone about this poem, as though
the dying person is a controller, an organizer, a cold person in fact, her last
steps towards death were so calculated, “The Eyes around-had wrung them
dry-/And Breaths were Gathering firm/ for the last Onset-when the King/Be
witnessed-in the Room.”(ln 5-8). She is waiting for King (God) to come and
take her to the after life. She has calculated death, then this pest
“interposes” itself , “Between the light and me”(ln14) her peaceful
transition to heaven was interrupted. The fly suddenly opens up the possibility
that all is not about to proceed as expected, even after death. And the fact
that this is also a posthumously...

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